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Of the corporeal thus brought into being by Nature the
elemental materials of things are its very produce, but how do
animal and vegetable forms stand to it?
Are we to think of them as containers of Nature present within
them?
Light goes away and the air contains no trace of it, for light
and air remain each itself, never coalescing: is this the
relation of Nature to the formed object?
It is rather that existing between fire and the object it has
warmed: the fire withdrawn, there remains a certain warmth,
distinct from that in the fire, a property, so to speak, of the
object warmed. For the shape which Nature imparts to what it has
moulded must be recognized as a form quite distinct from Nature
itself, though it remains a question to be examined whether
besides this [specific] form there is also an intermediary, a
link connecting it with Nature, the general principle.
The difference between Nature and the Wisdom described as
dwelling in the All has been sufficiently dealt with.
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